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WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH 
DAUGHTER 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH 
DAUGHTER 

THE  STORY  OF  HER  BIRTH.  WITH  THE  CERTIFICATES 
OF  HER  BAPTISM  AND  MARRIAGE 


GEORGE  McLEAN  HARPER 

Professor  of  Englisfi  in   Princeton  University. 

Autlior  of  "  John  Morley  and  Other  Essays," 

"William  Wordsworth,  His  Life, 

Works  and  Influence,"  etc. 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON :  HUMPHREY  MILFOBD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

1931 


Copyright     1921,    by 
Princeton    University    Press 


Published     1921 
Printed    in   the    United   States    of   America 


LIBRARY 

UKIVERSITY  OF  CAMFORIVIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH 
DAUGHTER 

When,  in  the  winter  of  1914-15, 1  found 
among  the  manuscripts  in  the  British 
Museum  a  collection  of  letters  from  Doro- 
thy Wordsworth,  the  poet's  sister,  in 
which  she  referred  again  and  again  to  his 
daughter  Caroline,  born  of  a  French 
mother,  the  discovery  did  not  surprise  me. 
1  had  long  been  convinced,  more  by  omis- 
sions than  by  positive  traces  in  his  poems 
and  letters,  that  his  nature  had  received, 
while  he  was  in  France,  a  blow  from  which 
he  never  wholly  recovered  and  whose 
causes  had  not  been  made  known  to  the 
world.  These  mipublished  letters  of 
Dorothy  were  addressed  to  her  intimate 
friend,  the  wife  of  the  famous  abolitionist 
Thomas  Clarkson.  Mrs.  Clarkson  had 
gone  to  Paris,  in  the  brief  interval  be- 
tween the  entry  of  the  Allies  in  1814  and 


6    WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

the  return  of  Napoleon  from  Elba,  in 
1815. 

Under  date  of  October  14,  1814,  Doro- 
thy writes  to  her:  "I  cannot  help  very 
much  regretting  that  you  forgot  to  tell 
me  where  to  address  you  while  you  were 
there,  as  I  should  have  been  exceedingly 
glad  that  you  had  seen  the  young  woman 
whom  I  mentioned  to  you,  the  more  so  as 
a  treaty  of  marriage  is  now  on  foot  be- 
tween her  and  the  Brother  of  the  officer 
Beaudouin  whom  I  mentioned  to  you  as 
having  been  at  Rydale,  and  she  and  her 
Mother  are  extremely  anxious  that  I 
should  be  present  at  the  wedding,  and  for 
that  purpose  pressed  me  very  much  to  go 
in  October.  This,  unless  such  good  for- 
tune had  attended  us  as  being  taken  under 
your  and  your  Husband's  protection,  we 
could  not  think  of  at  this  season,  and 
therefore  I  wish  that  the  marriage  should 
be  deferred  till  next  spring  or  summer, 
because  I  desire  exceedingly  to  see  the 
poor  Girl  before  she  takes  another  pro- 
tector than  her  mother,  under  whom  I 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER    7 

believe  she  has  been  bred  up  in  perfect 
purity  and  innocence,  and  to  whom  she  is 
life  and  light  and  perpetual  pleasure; 
though  from  the  over-generous  disposi- 
tions of  the  mother  they  have  had  to  strug- 
gle through  many  difficulties.  Well,  I  be- 
gan to  say  that  I  particularly  wished  that 
you  could  have  seen  them  at  this  time,  as 
through  you  I  should  have  been  able  to 
enter  into  some  explanations,  which,  im- 
perfectly as  I  express  myself  in  French, 
are  difficult,  and  as  you  would  have  been 
able  to  confirm  or  contradict  the  reports 
which  we  receive  from  Caroline's  Mother 
and  Mr.  Beaudouin  of  her  interesting  and 
amiable  qualities.  They  both  say  that  she 
resembles  her  Father  most  strikingly,  and 
her  letters  give  a  picture  of  a  feeling  and 
ingenuous  mind." 

Sara  Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Wordsworth's 
sister,  was  to  accompanj^  Dorothy.  They 
dreaded  the  inconvenience  and  dangers 
of  travel,  these  two  middle-aged  ladies,  in 
a  foreign  country  against  which  England 
had  been  at  war  for  nearly  twenty  years, 


8    WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

and  wished  they  could  go  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Heniy  Crabb  Robinson,  the 
more  so  as  they  intended  to  carry  presents 
of  Enghsh  manufacture.  From  a  letter 
begun  on  the  last  day  of  1814,  we  learn 
that  the  wedding  was  postponed  till  April 
and  that  they  were  hesitating  about  going 
so  late  in  the  spring  because  they  expected 
to  stay  nine  or  ten  weeks  and  would  thus 
be  in  Paris  in  June,  when  King  Louis 
XVIII  was  to  be  anointed.  They  feared 
the  public  disturbances  and  possible  out- 
break of  civil  war  which  might  attend  that 
event.  "Besides,"  adds  Dorothy,  "the 
journey  will  be  very  expensive,  which  we 
can  ill  afford,  and  the  money  would  be  bet- 
ter spent  in  augmenting  my  Niece's  wed- 
ding portion.  To  this  effect  I  have  writ- 
ten to  her.  She  would  not  consent  to 
marry  without  my  presence,  which  was 
the  reason  that  April  was  fixed." 

Suddenly  this  little  family  project  was 
wiped  from  the  scroll  on  which  Destiny 
inscribed  the  Hundred  Days  and  Water- 
loo.   On  March  16,  1815,  Dorothy  wrote 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER    9 

to  Mrs.  Clarkson:  "For  the  sake  of  our 
Friends  I  am  truly  distressed.  The  lady 
whom  I  mentioned  to  you  from  the  first 
was  a  zealous  Royalist,  has  often  risked 
her  life  in  defence  of  adherents  to  that 
cause,  and  she  despised  and  detested 
Buonaparte."  Dorothy  is  referring  here 
to  Caroline's  mother,  and  continues,  "Poor 
creature!  in  the  last  letter  which  we  had 
from  her  she  spoke  only  of  hope  and  com- 
fort ;  said  that  the  king's  government  was 
daily  gaining  strength."  On  April  11, 
1815,  she  quotes  to  Mrs.  Clarkson  from 
a  letter  by  Caroline's  mother  describing 
the  march  of  Napoleon's  army  into  Paris, 
and  adds:  "Poor  creatures,  they  say  they 
are  shipwrecked  when  just  entering  into 
port." 

From  a  letter  dated  August  15,  1815, 
eight  weeks  after  Waterloo,  we  learn  that 
it  was  proposed  to  send  Caroline  to  Eng- 
land to  meet  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wordsworth, 
and  incidentally  that  "Madame  Vallon," 
her  mother,  had  many  acquaintances,  to 
one  of  whom  it  was  possible  she  might  en- 


10   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

trust  her  daughter  for  the  journey. 
Dorothy  writes  on  April  4,  1816,  still  ex- 
pressing her  ardent  desire  to  go  to  France, 
even  though  Caroline's  wedding,  of  which 
Madame  Vallon  had  sent  her  a  detailed 
description,  had  already  taken  place/ 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1820, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  Dorothy, 
Heniy  Crabb  Robinson,  Thomas  Monk- 
house  (a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Wordsworth's), 
JNIrs.  Monkhouse,  and  her  sister  Miss 
Horrocks  travelled  on  the  Continent.  In 
October  the  party  were  in  Paris,  where 
they  spent  nearly  the  entire  month  near 
Madame  Baudouin,  i.e.,  Caroline,  and  her 
husband  and  mother.  There  were  fre- 
quent visits  back  and  forth  between  the 
French  family,  living  in  the  rue  Chariot, 
near  the  Boulevard  du  Temple,  and  the 
English  travellers,  who  had  taken  lodg- 
ings in  the  same  street.  Dorothy  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Clarkson  on  October  14,  saying: 

1  These  letters  to  Mrs.  Clarkson  are  given  in  full  or 
in  copious  extracts  in  my  Life  of  William  Wordsworth, 
London   and  New  York,  1916. 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   11 

"We  have  had  great  satisfaction  at  Paris 
in  seeing  our  Friends  whom  I  have  men- 
tioned to  you." 

Crabb  Robinson's  Diary  fills  numerous 
closely-written  little  volumes,  now  pre- 
served in  Dr.  Williams's  Library,  in  Lon- 
don. Only  about  one-eighth  of  their  con- 
tents lias  been  printed,  and  I  was  court- 
eously allowed  to  examine  the  manuscript 
originals  at  my  leisure  in  1915.  Among 
the  unpublished  j^arts  of  it  I  found  sev- 
eral references  to  "Monsieur  and  Madame 
Beaudoin"  and  "Madame  Vallon,"  and 
abundant  proof  that  they  and  their  Eng- 
lish visitors  were  on  terms  of  intimacy. 

I  have  often  been  asked  why,  having 
published  the  letters  to  Mrs,  Clarkson  and 
the  extracts  from  Robinson's  Diary,  I  did 
not  go  farther,  in  my  "Life  of  Words- 
worth," and  make  more  use  of  such  illumi- 
nating information.  It  is  true  that  the 
facts,  of  which  a  brief  summary  is  given 
above,  threw  light  upon  many  of  Words- 
worth's poems,  but  I  preferred  to  let  it 
shine  without  interposing  any  medium  of 


12   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

my  own,  and  the  delicacy  of  the  subject 
forbade  unnecessary  speculation.  How- 
ever, having  discovered,  in  July,  1917,  the 
official  records  of  Caroline's  birth  and 
marriage  and  obtained  here  and  there 
some  additional  items  about  her  mother's 
family,  all  of  which  would  no  doubt  be  dis- 
closed sooner  or  later,  I  have  thought  it 
best  to  give  them  as  simply  and  correctly 
as  possible,  with  just  the  requisite  amount 
of  comment.  Every  fresh  fact  makes  it 
more  and  more  apparent  that  whatever, 
from  a  legal  point  of  view,  may  have  been 
the  nature  of  the  connection  between 
Wordsworth  and  Marie- Anne  or  "An- 
nette" Vallon,  it  was  openly  acknowledged 
and  its  consequences  were  honorably  en- 
dured. 

Certain  biographical  and  historical  facts 
must  be  borne  in  mind  in  order  to  under- 
stand the  series  of  extraordinary  situa- 
tions in  which  these  young  persons  were 
placed.  Wordsworth,  with  a  college 
friend,  tramped  across  France  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1790,  when  he  was  twenty  years 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   13 

old  and  the  Revolution  was  in  the  full 
bloom  of  radiant  promise.  His  impres- 
sions of  the  country,  its  inhabitants,  and 
the  Revolution  were  entirely  favorable. 
In  November  of  the  following  year,  hav- 
ing obtained  his  degree  at  Cambridge,  and 
being  in  an  unsettled  state  of  mind  and 
unwilling  to  engage  at  once  in  the  studies 
of  a  profession,  he  returned  to  France 
and,  after  stopping  five  days  in  Paris, 
spent  the  winter  at  Orleans,  and  went  to 
Blois,  forty  miles  farther  down  the  Loire, 
in  the  spring  of  1792.  We  have  only  two 
letters  to  fix  the  chronology  of  his  stay  at 
Orleans.  He  wrote  to  his  brother  Richard 
from  that  town  on  December  19,  about  a 
fortnight  after  his  arrival  there,  and  to 
his  friend  Mathews  from  Blois,  on  May 
17,  some  weeks  after  his  change  of  resi- 
dence. It  was  at  Orleans  that  he  became 
acquainted  with  Marie- Anne  Vallon.  The 
letter  to  his  brother,  as  well  as  the  account 
given  in  the  "Prelude,"  Book  IX,  lines 
125-188,  depicts  the  society  in  which  he 
moved  at  Orleans  as  extremely  Royalist, 


14   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

aristocratic  in  its  pretentions,  and  scorn- 
ful of  the  common  people.  We  shall  see 
presently  that  the  Vallon  family  held 
Royalist  views  and  were  made  to  suffer 
for  them.  If  Wordsworth,  early  in  the 
spring  of  1792,  was  driven  away  from 
Marie- Anne  by  her  relatives  and  yet  de- 
sired to  remain  near  her,  the  place  most 
convenient  for  him  would  have  been  Blois. 
Had  he  wished  to  avoid  her,  he  would  have 
been  likely  to  hide  himself  in  Paris  or  to 
go  to  some  distant  part  of  France. 

At  the  time  of  his  second  arrival  in 
France,  the  Revolution  was  still  proceed- 
ing favorably.  Considering  what  an  evil 
incubus  had  been  thrown  off,  there  had 
been  little  flagrant  injustice  and  very  lit- 
tle bloodshed,  and  many  fair-minded, 
moderate  men  were  devoted  to  the  cause. 
The  generous  young  Englishman  threw 
himself  whole-heartedly  into  the  Revolu- 
tionary current,  reading  "the  master 
pamphlets  of  the  day,"  sitting  as  a  dis- 
ciple at  the  feet  of  Michel  Beaupuy,  a  Re- 
publican officer  at  Blois,  and  attending  the 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   15 

meetings  of  a  radical  club.  He  was  a 
homeless  orphan,  and,  under  the  trustee- 
ship of  his  uncles,  enjoyed  the  income  of  a 
small  patrimony,  so  that  the  world  lay 
very  free  around  him.  If  he  remained 
hovering  about  Orleans,  it  was,  we  may 
assume,  because  he  really  loved  Annette 
and  refused  to  abandon  her. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  Revolution 
was  that  the  State  assumed  some  of  the 
functions  that  previously  were  exercised 
by  the  Church.  A  distressing  consequence 
was  confusion  in  regard  to  the  laws  of 
marriage.  Before  the  Revolution  mar- 
riage was  in  the  hands  of  the  Church  and 
was  treated  as  a  sacrament.  By  a  decree 
of  the  National  Assembly  on  July  12, 
1790,  known  as  the  civil  constitution  of 
the  clergy,  all  priests  and  prelates  were 
declared  functionaries  of  the  State.  Only 
a  few  bishops  and  not  quite  half  of  the 
lower  clergy  took  the  oath  of  office  under 
this  law,  the  rest  choosing  to  remain  faith- 
ful to  Rome.  It  can  readily  be  seen  that 
each  side  would  be  reluctant  to  recognize 


16   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

the  validity  of  marriages  celebrated  by  the 
other.  The  ancient  sanctity  of  Church 
marriages  was  further  assailed  in  an  arti- 
cle of  the  Constitution  of  September, 
1791:  "The  law  considers  marriage  as 
only  a  civil  contract."  In  former  times 
the  registry  of  births,  baptisms,  marriages, 
and  deaths,  or  what  the  French  call  the 
Hat  civil,  had  been  kept  by  the  clergy. 
After  the  civil  constitution  of  the  clergj'^ 
the  parish  registers  were  placed  in  charge 
of  the  "constitutional"  or  Revolutionary 
priesthood,  and  yet  in  many  parishes, 
especially  in  rural  parts,  the  non-juring 
priests  endeavored  to  retain  their  old  pre- 
rogatives. A  proposal  was  made  in  the 
Assembly,  in  February,  1791,  to  have  the 
parish  registers  kept  by  the  civil  authori- 
ties.' By  the  law  of  September  20,  1792, 
the  Legislative  Assembly  completely 
secularized  the  keeping  of  the  Hat  civil, 
"Everywhere  the  directories  and  munici- 
palities claimed  a  right  to  oblige  the  con- 

2L.    Sciout:     Histoire    de    la    Constitution    civile    du 
Clerge,  Vol.  IH,  p.  118. 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   17 

stitutional  priests  to  keep  no  records  of 
the  sacramental  acts,  to  give  up  publish- 
ing banns,  and  to  treat  marriage  in  church 
as  a  mere  formality."^  Some  bishops 
agreed  to  favor  this  line  of  conduct;  oth- 
ers objected.  Some  of  them  forbade  the 
priests  in  their  dioceses  to  pronounce  the 
nuptial  blessing  over  persons  who  refused 
to  have  their  marriage  proclaimed  in 
church.*  If  the  law  bore  thus  heavily 
upon  the  constitutional  clergy,  it  was  even 
more  oppressive  and  confusing  in  the  case 
of  non- jurors.  Marie- Anne  Vallon  be- 
longed to  a  family  which  would  have  con- 
sidered a  merely  civil  marriage  null  and 
void  and  marriage  by  a  constitutional 
priest  an  insult  to  religion. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  inquire 
more  particularly  who  Marie- Anne  Val- 
lon was,  and  what  was  the  relation  be- 
tween her  and  William  Wordsworth. 
Some  light  has  been  shed  upon  the  first  of 

3  Ibid.,  Ill,  355. 

*  Proclamation    of    the    provisional    executive    council, 
January  92,  1793. 


18   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

these  questions  through  a  few  indirect  and 
accidental  references  in  a  book  published 
by  Mr.  Guy  Trouillard,  keeper  of  the 
Archives  of  the  Department  of  Loir  et 
Cher:  "Memoires  de  Madame  Vallon, 
souvenirs  de  la  Revolution  dans  le  de- 
partement  de  Loir  et  Cher."  Paris, 
1913.  The  writer  of  these  memoirs, 
whose  maiden  name  was  Marie-Catherine 
Puzela,  was  the  wife  of  Paul-Leonard 
Vallon,  Annette's  brother.  She  finished 
them  in  1823,  and  M.  Trouillard  prepared 
them  for  the  press  at  the  instance  of  her 
grandson  M.  Omer  Vallon,  maitre  des 
requetes  honoraire  au  Conseil  d'Etat  and 
administrateur  delegue  du  Chemin  de  Fer 
du  Nord.  A  descendant  of  Paul-Leonard 
Vallon,  Madame  Maurice  Lecoq- Vallon, 
informs  me  that,  according  to  a  domestic 
tradition,  the  correct  name  of  the  family 
was  Leonnar,  belonging  to  Scottish  an- 
cestors who  came  into  France  with  James 
the  Second,  and  that  the  name  Vallon  or 
du  Vallon  was  substituted  for  it  later. 
The  memoirs  narrate,  for  the  benefit  of 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   19 

the  author's  descendants,  the  adventures 
and  sufferings  of  herself,  her  father,  and 
her  husband  from  1791  to  the  end  of  the 
Terror.  She  was  born  in  1776.  Her  hus- 
band, the  son  of  Jean-Baptiste-Leonard 
Vallon,  a  surgeon,  and  Fran^oise  Yvon, 
was  baptized  at  Blois  in  1763.  Paul- 
Leonard  Vallon  and  Marie-Catherine 
Puzela  were  married  in  1804,  he  having 
been,  most  of  the  time  since  March,  1793, 
in  prison,  in  exile,  or  under  police  sur- 
veillance, for  complicity  in  a  Royalist  up- 
rising at  Orleans,  where  he  lived  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  This  was  the 
attempted  assassination  of  Leonard  Bour- 
don, one  of  the  travelling  representatives 
of  the  Convention.  It  was  bloodily 
avenged  by  Fouquier-Tin\'ille  and  his 
fellow-delegates,  and  is  frequently  re- 
ferred to  in  Aulard's  "Recueil  des  actes 
du  Comite  de  salut  public  avec  la  corre- 
spondance  officielle  des  representants  en 
mission,"  Paris,  1889-1911.  Not  until 
1804  was  Vallon  authorized  to  resimie  the 
practice  of  his  profession  as  a  notary.    As 


20   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

soon  as  he  obtained  permission  from  the 
poHce  to  do  so,  he  settled  at  Saint-Dye,  a 
village  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Loire,  nine 
miles  above  Blois,  where  he  was  a  notary 
anc  justice  of  the  peace  till  1830  and  died 
in  1835. 

It  was  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
Royalty  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
that  gave  him  favor  in  the  eyes  of  Made- 
moiselle Puzela's  father.  They  were  fel- 
low-sufferers. Puzela  had  himself  lan- 
guished in  prison,  at  Blois  and  Orleans, 
between  August,  1793,  and  January,  1794, 
being  saved  from  the  guillotine  by  the 
heroic  fidelity  of  his  daughter,  who  in- 
sisted on  sharing  his  fate.  He  then  began 
life  again  as  a  notary  at  Saint-Dye,  where 
he  lived  till  his  death  in  1806.  During  an 
illness  which  resulted  from  her  sacrifices, 
and  especially  from  overwork  while  help- 
ing him  in  his  business,  she  consulted,  to 
her  father's  horror,  the  famous  Dr.  Cham- 
bon  de  Montaux,  who  had  been  mayor  of 
Paris  from  December,  1792,  to  February, 
1793,  and  in  that  capacity  had  led  Louis 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   21 

XVI  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention  for  his 
trial  and  accompanied  the  President  of 
the  Executive  Council  when  he  went  to 
announce  to  the  King  his  sentence  of 
death. 

Writing  to  her  children,  and  referring 
to  Paul-Leonard  Vallon,  the  author  says: 
"During  my  convalescence,  which  was 
very  slow,  your  father  was  released  from 
the  prison  of  Sainte-Pelagie,  where  he  had 
been  kept  since  his  return  from  foreign 
parts.  A  small  inheritance  called  him  to 
Saint-Dye.  His  relatives  lived  at  Blois, 
and  one  of  his  sisters  came  with  him  to 
Saint-Dye.  My  father  was  quite  famous 
[for  his  Royalist  views,  as  the  context 
shows].  The  sister  held  ojiinions  which 
were  reputed  excellent  [i.e.,  she  was 
strongly  Royalist  and  Catholic],  and 
though  she  was  not  acquainted  with  us, 
she  introduced  her  brother.  The  victims 
of  the  Revolution  told  one  another  their 
misfortunes  and  soon  became  intimate 
friends.  Your  father  told  mine  in  confi- 
dence that  he  was  mider  the  surveillance 


22   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

of  the  secret  police  and  could  reside  no- 
where without  a  special  permit.  To  at- 
tempt disobedience  would  be  to  defy  the 
tyrants.  His  sister  had  heard  the  sup- 
posed cause  of  my  illness,  and  as  her 
brother  had  been  employed  fifteen  years 
as  a  notary's  clerk  at  Orleans  and  had 
plenty  of  ability,  she  proposed  a  match 
between  us.  Still  stunned  by  Dr.  Cham- 
bon's  report  of  my  health,  and  circum- 
vented by  the  sister,  who  did  not  give  him 
time  to  breathe  and  kept  urging  this  al- 
liance with  a  Royalist  as  a  marriage 
worthy  of  me,  my  father,  though  he  had 
sworn  to  himself  never  to  let  me  marry, 
at  last  gave  in."  She  was  so  ill  that  she 
had  to  recline  in  a  big  easy  chair  to  re- 
ceive the  formal  visit  of  her  fiance  and  his 
sister,  but  the  marriage  took  place  three 
weeks  later,  on  the  10th  pluviose,  January 
31,  1804. 

The  point  of  interest  for  us  in  the  fore- 
going account  is  that  Paul-Leonard  Val- 
lon  and  Marie- Anne,  if  she  was  the  sister 
mentioned,  were  intensely  Royalist  and 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   23 

Catholic.  Another  point  made  clear  in 
the  "Memoires"  is  that  throughout  the 
year  1792  a  fierce  contest  was  waged  in 
the  country  around  Blois  between  the  fol- 
lowers of  Rome,  who  seem  to  have  been 
numerous  in  the  villages,  and  the  sup- 
porters of  the  constitutional  clergy.  For 
example,  in  one  village,  Saint-Cyr,  the 
Republicans  drove  away  the  priests  who 
would  not  take  the  oath  and  locked  up  the 
church;  whereupon  a  society  of  non-con- 
forming Catholics  was  organized,  which 
worshipped  in  a  barn.  In  July  a  band  of 
armed  "patriots,"  inspired,  it  was  sup- 
posed, by  the  Revolutionary  club,  the 
Friends  of  the  Constitution,  at  Blois,  in- 
terrupted a  vesper  service  in  the  bam; 
and  in  the  following  month  several  non- 
juring  priests  were  driven  out  of  the  De- 
partment. It  is  practically  certain  that 
Wordsworth,  and  quite  certain  that  his 
friend  the  officer  Beaupuy,  attended  the 
meetings  of  the  Friends  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  were  held  nightly  in  the 
church   of  the  Jacobins   at  Blois.     The 


24   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

author  of  the  "Memoires,"  though  only 
sixteen  years  old,  tried  to  shield  her  father 
from  the  charge  of  being  an  aristocrat  by 
attending  one  of  the  sessions.  "Women," 
she  says,  "were  admitted  just  like  men. 
It  was  there,  we  were  told,  that  youth  was 
formed  in  the  love  of  our  country;  so  my 
age  was  no  obstacle."  Borrowing  the 
plain  democratic  garb  of  an  artisan's 
daughter,  she  ventured,  as  she  expresses 
it,  into  that  cave  where  people  played 
with  the  Hves  of  virtuous  citizens.  "What 
a  sight!  With  what  horror  was  I  seized 
when  I  perceived  that  it  was  a  church! 
All  my  opinions,  all  my  principles,  made 
me  see  the  thunderbolt  launched  by  God's 
avenging  arm.  .  .  .  The  platform  Where 
men  stood  to  speak  was  a  pulpit  from 
which  I  had  often  heard  the  gentle  mo- 
rality of  our  holy  religion.  .  .  .  They 
crowded  round  that  platform,  trying  to 
see  who  could  speak  first  and  be  the  first 
to  bring  accusations,  and  loud  applause 
was  the  reward  of  whoever  offered  the 
greatest  number  of  victims."    To  her  hor- 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER      25 

ror  she  saw  her  father's  brother  rise  to 
this  bad  eminence  and  receive  this  crown 
of  praise.  "Let  me  out!"  she  cried  to  the 
woman  who  accompanied  her,  and  return- 
ing to  her  father  she  told  him  that  the  de- 
nunciations seemed  to  be  principally  di- 
rected against  the  priests,  but  that  he  too 
should  at  once  leave  Blois. 

Under  the  direction  of  the  constitution- 
al bishop  Gregoire,  who  was  a  prominent 
member  of  the  Convention,  the  Revolu- 
tionary church  was  very  successfully  or- 
ganized at  Blois  and  had  many  adherents. 
But  we  learn  that  non-juring  priests  held 
many  secret  services  in  the  city  and  that 
these  services  were  still  more  frequent  in 
the  outlying  villages.  Gazier  in  his 
"Etudes  sur  I'histoire  religieuse  de  la 
Revolution  fran9aise,"  Book  II,  Chap- 
ters 4  and  5  (as  quoted  by  M.  Trouillard) 
says:  "Mass  was  celebrated  at  almost 
every  door.  .  .  .  The  good  priests  rebap- 
tized  and  remarried  as  fast  as  they  could." 

All  this  tends  to  prove  that  if  William 
Wordsworth,  a  Protestant  and,  moreover. 


26   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

a  zealous  Revolutionary,  desired  to  marry 
Marie-Anne  Vallon,  a  Roman  Catholic 
and  Royalist,  in  the  year  1792,  at  Orleans 
or  Blois,  he  would  have  had  to  overcome 
very  great  obstacles.  It  is  evident  that 
the  Vallon  family  would  not  have  regard- 
ed as  valid  a  marriage  performed  by  a 
constitutional  priest,  even  had  they  over- 
come their  objections  to  the  young  man 
himself.  And  if,  yielding  his  principles 
to  theirs,  he  had  employed  the  services  of 
a  non-juring  priest,  the  marriage  would 
have  been,  strictly  speaking,  illegal  at  that 
time  and  until  the  publication  of  the  Con- 
cordat, April  18,  1802.  Whether  there 
was  a  marriage  of  this  latter  kind  might 
have  been  regarded  as  an  open  question, 
were  it  not  for  the  two  documents  which 
we  shall  consider  presently. 

As  we  learn  from  a  letter  to  his  brother 
Richard,  the  young  poet  was  still  at  Blois 
on  the  tenth  of  September,  but  expecting 
to  be  in  London  "during  the  course  of  the 
month  of  October."^    His  departure  from 

5  Harper:    Life  of  Wordsworth,  I,  173. 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER      27 

Blois  was  probably  delayed  by  the  dread- 
ful events  in  the  first  week  of  September, 
when  the  massacres  of  imprisoned  Royal- 
ists occurred  and  the  Revolution  was 
clearly  proved  to  have  got  beyond  the 
control  of  moderate  men.  He  passed 
through  Orleans  later  in  the  autumn,  on 
his  way  to  Paris,  with  what  thoughts  we 
can  only  surmise.  Of  his  ominous  fears 
in  Paris  he  has  left  a  description  in  the 
tenth  Book  of  the  Prelude.  He  appears 
to  have  returned  to  England  in  December, 

1792,  or  even  so  late  as  January,  1793. 
On  the  first  of  Februarj^  France  declared 
war  against  England,  and  from  that  time 
until  after  the  Treaty  of  Amiens,  March 
28,  1802,  he  could  not  have  re-entered 
France  unless  in  disguise  and  at  the  ex- 
treme risk  of  his  life.  I  have  given  some 
slight  bits  of  evidence,  in  my  "Life  of 
Wordsworth,"  Vol.  I,  209  and  Vol.  II, 
417,  for  a  view  that  he  was  in  France  in 

1793,  but  without  attaching  much  impor- 
tance to  them.  On  the  evidence  of 
Thomas   Carlyle,   Wordsworth    once    let 


28   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

fall  the  remark  that  he  had  witnessed  the 
execution  of  Gorsas,  which  was  in  October 
of  that  year.  If  so,  he  was  brave  to  the 
point  of  foolhardiness,  almost  incredibly 
clever,  and  very  lucky  to  escape  from 
France  after  such  an  adventure. 

The  next,  and  by  far  the  clearest  ray 
of  light  is  shed  on  this  obscure  story  by  a, 
document  of  which  I  obtained  a  copy  in 
July,  1917,  through  the  kindness  of  M. 
Jacques  Soyer,  Keeper  of  the  Archives  of 
the  Department  of  Loiret.  It  has  never 
before  been  published: 

\^ Archives  cormiiunules  d' Orleans,  regis- 
tre  des  baptemes  de  la  paroisse  de  Sainte- 
Croicc.    G.G.  185.^ 

JLe  quinzieme  jour  de  decembre  de  Van 
mil  sept  cent  quatre  vingt  douze,  le  pre- 
mier de  la  Repuhlique,  par  moi,  soussigne, 
a  ete  batisse  tine  fille,  nee  ce  jour  sur  cette 
paroisse  de  Williams  Wordwodsih,  ang- 
lais, et  de  Marie-Anne  Vallon,  ses  pere 
et  mere;  nommee  Anne-Caroline  par  Paul 
Vallon  et  Marie-Victorie- Adelaide  Peig- 
ne,     femme     Andre- Augustin     Dufour. 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   29 

Williams  Wordsodsth ,  absent,  a  ete  repre- 
sente  en  qualite  de  ph^e  de  Venfant  par  le 
citoien  susdit  Andre- Aug ustin  Dufour, 
greffier  du  tribunal  du  district  d'Orleans, 
en  vertu  d'un  poiivoir  ad  hoc  a  nous  pre- 
sent e  et  signe  ''Williams  W ordworsth" ' 
de  laquelle  signuture  les  citoiens  Andre- 
Aiigustin  Dufour,  Paul  Vallon  et  Marie- 
Victorie- Adelaide  Peigne,  snsdits,  nous 
ont  certifie  Vauthenticite  par  leurs  signa- 
tures, ci-dessous  et  sous  leur  responsa- 
bilite. 

M.  V.  A.  Peigne.    Vallon.    Dufour 
Perrin,  Vicaire  episcopal. 

Translation : 

[Communal  Archives  of  Orleans, 
registry  of  baptisms  in  the  parish  of 
Sainte-Croix.    G.G.  185.] 

On  the  fifteenth  day  of  December,  of 
the  year  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
ninety-two,  the  first  of  the  Republic,  by 
me,  the  undersigned,  was  baptized  a  girl, 
bom  the  same  day  in  this  parish  to  Wil- 
liams Wordwodsth,  an  Englishman,  and 
Marie-Anne  Vallon,  her  father  and  moth- 


30      WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

er;  named  Anne-Caroline  by  Paul  Vallon 
and  Marie- Victorie- Adelaide  Peigne,  wife 
of  Andre-Augustin  Diifour.  Williams 
Wordsodsth,  being  absent,  was  represent- 
ed as  the  child's  father  by  the  aforesaid 
citizen  Andre-Augustin  Dufour,  recorder 
of  the  court  of  the  district  of  Orleans,  by 
virtue  of  a  power  of  attorney  ad  hoc  pre- 
sented to  us  and  signed  "Williams  Word- 
worsth,"  of  which  signature  the  citizens 
Andre-Augustin  Dufour,  Paul  Vallon 
and  Marie- Victorie-Adelaide  Peigne 
aforesaid  have  certified  to  us  the  authen- 
ticity by  their  signatures  below  and  on 
their  own  responsibility. 

M.  V.  A.  Peigne.    Vallon.    Dufour. 
Perrin,  Episcopal  Vicar. 

In  the  letters  of  Dorothy  Wordsworth 
and  in  her  Journal  there  are  several  re- 
marks between  1795  and  1802  which  indi- 
cate that  her  brother  was  in  correspon- 
dence with  Annette  and  that  Caroline, 
when  she  was  old  enough,  wrote  to  her 
father.  These  letters  also  show  that  Dor- 
othy's friend,  Mrs.  Marshall,  was  in  the 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   31 

secret,  if  secret  it  was.  Writing  to  her 
from  Racedown  on  November  30,  1795, 
Dorothj^  says :  "William  has  had  a  letter 
from  France  since  we  came  here.  Annette 
mentions  having  despatched  half  a  dozen, 
none  of  which  he  has  received."  As  soon 
as  it  became  evident  that  peace  between 
England  and  France  was  at  hand,  in  the 
spring  of  1802,  the  agitation  of  William 
and  Dorothy  grew  veiy  painful,  and  they 
determined  to  cross  the  Channel.  The 
meeting  at  Calais  with  Annette  and  Caro- 
line followed,®  and  two  months  later 
Wordsworth  and  Mary  Hutchinson  were 
married.  Annette  was  never  married,  and 
was  known  as  Madame  Vallon.  It  is 
strange  that  no  mention  of  her  or  of  Caro- 
line is  made  in  any  of  the  published  let- 
ters of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  though 
the  story  of  their  lives  was  known  to  Mrs. 
Marshall,  Mrs.  Clarkson,  Crabb  Robin- 
son, Miss  Horrocks,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Monk- 
house,  Helen  Maria  Williams,  and  the 
Hutchinson  family.    It  is  beyond  question 

6  Harper:    Life  of  Wordsworth,   H,  31. 


32   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

that  Caroline's  birth  was  illegitimate,  but 
jthat  the  subsequent  conduct  of  Words- 
worth towards  her  mother  was  honorable 
and  open  I  have  no  doubt  whatever. 
What  remains  to  be  discovered  is  the 
reason  why  this  connection  was  not  re- 
sumed and  regularized  after  the  meeting 
in  1802.  Further  communication  was  ren- 
dered extremely  difficult  or  even  impos- 
sible for  eleven  years  by  the  war,  which 
began  again  in  May,  1803,  and  did  not 
end  till  after  the  first  abdication  of  Na- 
poleon, in  April,  1814,  whereupon,  as  we 
have  seen,  William  and  Dorothy  at  once 
got  in  touch  with  "Madame  Vallon"  and 
her  daughter. 

It  is  a  touching  fact  that  Caroline  was 
married,  not  as  Caroline  Vallon,  but  as 
Caroline  Wordsworth,  and  with  her  fa- 
ther's formal  consent.  In  July,  1917,  I 
copied  from  the  Archives  of  the  Prefec- 
ture of  the  Seine,  regt.  27,  No.  57,  the  fol- 
lowing document,  regarding  that  event. 
It  has  never  been  published: 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   33 

Baudouin 

Uan  mil  huit  cent  seize  le  vingt  Fevrier 
a  midi  par  devant  nous  Alexandre  Cesar 
Crette,  Ecuyer,  chevalier  de  la  Legion 
d'honneur,  maire  du  troisieme  arrondisse- 
ment  de  Paris,  faisant  fonction  d'officier 
de  Vetat  civil — sont  comparus  Jean  Bap- 
tiste  Martin  Baudouin,  ne  a  Saulx  le  Due, 
departement  de  la  Cote  d'Or  le  vingt 
quatre  septemhi'e  mil  sept  cent  quatre 
vingt,  chef  de  bureau  au  mont  de  piete, 
demeurant  a  Paris,  rue  de  la  Texeranderie 
No.  82,  neuvieme  arrondissement,  fils 
majeur  de  feu  Erne  Georges  Baudouin, 
et  de  Marie  Anne  Etienne  sa  veuve,  de- 
meurant a  Monibard,  consentante  par 
acte  passe  devant  Guerard  et  son  collegu£, 
notaires  Royaux  au  dit  Monthard,  le  seize 
du  courant,  enregistre  et  legalise,  d'une 
part: — et  Anne  Caroline  Wordsworth, 
nee  a  Orleans,  departement  du  Loiret,  le 
quinze  decembre  mil  sept  cent  quatre 
vingt  douze,  demeurant  a  Paris,  rue  de 
Paradis  No.  35,  quartier  du  Faubourg 
Poissonniere,  file  majeure  de  Williams 


:}4   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

Wordsworth,  proprietcdre ,  demeurant  a 
Grasmer,  Kendan,  Duche  de  Westermor- 
land,  en  Angleterre,  consent  ant  par  acte 
en  date  du  dioc  sept  octohre  dernier,  enreg- 
istre  et  depose  a  Me  Cleophile  Michel 
Deherain,  not  aire  a  Paris,  et  de  Marie 
Anne  Fallon,  presente  et  consentante, 
d' autre  part: 

Lesquels  nous  ont  requis  de  proceder  a 
la  celebration  de  leur  manage,  dont  les 
publications  ont  He  faites  au  troisieme  et 
an  neuvieme  arrondissements  de  Paris,  les 
dimanches  vingt  huit  Janvier  dernier  et 
quatre  du  courant,  a  midi,  et  affiches  pen- 
dant Vintervalle  present  par  la  lot,  sans 
qu'il  nous  ait  ete  signifie  aucwne  opposi- 
tion au  dit  mariage,  faisant  droit  a  leur 
requisition,  apres  avoir  prealablement 
donne  lecture  des  dites  publications,  des 
actes  de  naissance  des  comparants,  de 
celui  de  dices  du  pere  du  requerant,  du 
consentement  de  sa  mere,  et  celui  du  pere 
de  la  requerante,  enon^ante  que  la  vraie 
maniere  d'ecrire  le  nom  de  la  dite  requer- 
ante est  Wordsworth  et  non  pas  Word- 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER      35 

wodsth,  comme  dans  son  acte  de  nais- 
sance;  enfin  du  chapitre  siiV  du  titre  du 
Code  civil  intitule  du  marriage,  avons  de~ 
mande  au  futur  epoucc  et  a  la  future 
epouse  s'ils  veulent  se  prendre  pour  mari 
et  pour  femme,  chacun  d'eux  ayant  re- 
pondu  separement  et  affirmativement , 
nous  avons  declare,  au  nom  de  la  loi,  que 
Jean  Baptiste  Martin  Baudouin  et  Anne 
Caroline  Wordsworth  sont  unis  par  le 
mariage:  De  quoi  nous  avons  dresse  acte 
en  presence  des  sieurs  Michel  Eustace 
Baudouin,  de  St.  Etienne,  age  de  vingt- 
cing  ans,  instructeur  en  chef  de  la  com- 
pagnie  Ecossaise,  chevalier  de  la  Legion 
d'Honneur,  demeurant  a  Paris,  rue  de  la 
Teoceranderie  No.  82,  frere  de  Vepouoo, 
Nicolas  Bailly,  chevalier  officier  de  la  le- 
gion d'honneur,  conseilleur  a  la  cour  de 
cassation,  age  de  soixante  six  ans,  demeu- 
rant rue  Ste.  Hyacinthe  No.  6,  Armand, 
Parfait  huet,  age  de  quarante  deux  ans, 
dem't  rue  des  fosses  Montmartre  No.  17, 
amis  des  Epoux,  lesquels,  aussi  que  la 
mere    de    Vepouse    et    les    temoins    out 


36   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

signe  avec  nous,  apres  lecture  faite. 
Signe  au  Registre  A.  C.  Wordsworth,  J. 
B.  M.  Baudouin,  M.  A.  Fallon,  Baudouin 
de  Ste.  Etienne,  Le  chev^^  Bailly — huet, 
Boullay  et  Crette. 

Translation : 

At  noon  on  February  20,  1816,  there 
appeared  before  me,  Alexandre  Cesar 
Crette,  esquire,  chevalier  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  mayor  of  the  third  arrondissement 
of  Paris,  acting  in  my  capacity  as  an  offi- 
cer of  the  bureau  of  vital  statistics,  Jean 
Baptiste  Martin  Baudouin,  born  at  Saulx 
le  Due,  in  the  Department  of  the  Cote 
d'Or,  September  24,  1790,  head  of  a  bu- 
reau in  the  government  loan  establish- 
ment, residing  in  Paris,  No.  82  rue  de  la 
Texeranderie,  9th  arrondissement,  eldest 
son  of  the  late  Georges  Baudouin  and  of 
Marie  Anne  Etienne  his  widow,  who  lives 
at  Montbard  and  gives  her  consent  in  an 
affidavit  signed  before  Guerard  and  his 
colleague,  royal  notaries  at  the  aforesaid 
town  of  Montbard,  duly  registered  and 
legalized,   on  the   one  part: — and  Anne 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER      37 

Caroline  Wordsworth,  born  at  Orleans,  in 
the  Department  of  Loiret,  December  15, 
1792,  residing  in  Paris,  No.  35  rue  de 
Paradis,  in  the  quarter  of  the  Faubourg 
Poissonniere,  major  daughter  of  Williams 
Wordsworth,  land-owner,  residing  at 
Grasmer  (Grasmere),  Kendan  (Kendal), 
in  the  county  of  Westermorland  (West- 
morland) ,  England,  who  gives  his  consent 
in  an  affidavit  dated  the  17th  of  last  Oc- 
tober, and  duly  registered  and  deposited 
with  Maitre  Cleophile  Michel  Deherain, 
notary  in  Paris,  and  of  Marie  Anne  Val- 
lon,  here  present  and  giving  her  consent, 
on  the  second  part: 

Which  parties  of  the  first  and  second 
parts  having  requested  me  to  proceed  to 
the  celebration  of  their  marriage,  of  which 
the  banns  were  read  in  the  third  and  ninth 
arrondissements  of  Paris,  on  Sunday,  the 
28th  of  last  January  and  Sunday  the  4th 
of  the  present  month,  at  noon,  and  posted 
for  the  time  prescribed  by  the  law,  without 
any  objection  to  the  aforesaid  marriage 
having  been  made,  I  have  granted  their 


38   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

request,  after  having  first  read  aloud  the 
aforesaid  banns,  the  birth-records  of  the 
contracting  parties,  the  record  of  the 
bridegroom's  father's  death,  his  mother's 
affidavit  and  that  of  the  bride's  father,  she 
stating  that  the  true  way  to  spell  her 
name  is  Wordsworth  and  not  Word- 
wodsth,  as  it  stands  in  her  birth-record; 
and  finally,  having  read  aloud  chapter  six 
of  the  Civil  Code,  entitled  Marriage,  I 
have  asked  the  future  bride  and  groom  if 
they  would  take  each  other  for  husband 
and  wife,  and  each  having  responded  sepa- 
rately and  affirmatively,  I  have  declared, 
in  the  name  of  the  law,  that  Jean  Baptiste 
Martin  Baudouin  and  Anne  Caroline 
Wordsworth  are  united  in  marriage: 
whereof  I  have  drawn  up  a  statement  in 
the  presence  of  Michel  Eustase  Baudouin, 
of  St.  Etienne,  aged  twenty-five,  chief  in- 
structor of  the  Scottish  company,  cheva- 
her  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  residing  in 
Paris  at  No.  82  rue  de  la  Texeranderie, 
brother  of  the  husband,  Nicolas  Bailly, 
chevalier   and    officer    of   the    Legion   of 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER      39 

Honor,  counsellor  at  the  Supreme  Court, 
aged  sixty-six,  residing  at  No.  6  rue  St. 
Hyacinth,  Armand  Parfait  huet,  aged 
forty-two,  residing  at  No.  17  rue  des 
Fosses  Montmartre,  who  all,  together 
with  the  bride's  mother  and  the  witnesses, 
have  signed  with  me,  after  I  read  the 
statement. 

Signed  the  register:  A.  C.  Words- 
worth, J.  B.  M.  Baudouin,  M.  A.  Vallon, 
Baudouin  of  St.  Etienne,  the  chevalier 
Bailly, — huet,  Boullay  and  Crette. 

From  the  foregoing  pages  it  must  be  in- 
ferred that  Wordsworth,  being  a  just, 
merciful,  and  brave  man,  admitted  his 
fault  freely  and  endeavored  to  shield  with 
his  name  tlie  innocent  child  of  his  wrong- 
doing. Not  only  once,  but  twice,  and  the 
second  time  at  the  risk  of  losing  a  reputa- 
tion for  peculiar  correctness  of  conduct, 
did  he  publicly  acknowledge  Caroline  as 
his  daughter.  And  for  the  space  of  at 
least  twenty-eight  years,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  kept  in  friendly  communication  with 
Annette.    What   seems  almost   unbeliev- 


'40   WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER 

able,  and  can  indeed  only  be  explained  on 
the  ground  that  Mrs.  Wordsworth  was  a 
woman  of  extraordinary  magnanimity 
and  that  he  inspired  in  her  a  complete 
sense  of  his  own  goodness,  is  the  fact  that 
she,  with  a  company  of  relatives  and 
friends,  should  have  been  willing  to  visit 
Annette.  I  have  made  no  attempt  to  deny 
that  the  origin  of  all  this  trouble  was  a 
wrong;  but  the  unusual  difficulties  that 
stood  in  the  way  of  a  legal  marriage  be- 
tween William  Wordsworth  and  Anne- 
Marie  Vallon  should  be  and  will  be  re- 
membered. 

It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  know  that 
my  friend,  Professor  Emile  Legouis,  of 
the  Sorbonne,  is  about  to  publish  a  revised 
edition  of  his  delightful  book,  "The  Early 
Life  of  Wordsworth,"  in  which  he  will,  I 
hope,  furnish  some  further  information 
about  Annette  and  Caroline.  He  appre- 
ciates the  value  of  these  biographical  de- 
tails for  the  light  they  throw  upon  Words- 
worth's psychology  and  upon  the  course 
of  his  political  and  literary  development; 


WORDSWORTH'S  FRENCH  DAUGHTER   41 

and,  with  his  rare  insight  into  the  poet's 
character  and  his  exquisite  grace  of  style, 
he  will  doubtless  give  more  coherence  and 
significance  to  the  story  than  I  have  done. 


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